Who said anything about making money. There are so many dollars available. How do you effectively make the most use of those dollars? It is nonsense to not make cost/perfomance a consideration. Even NASA would agree with me, but they seem to consistently misunderstand there own costs (and projected capabilities) by orders of magnitude and so have been incapable of making appropriate decisions. After 30 years, it is clear the shuttle has run its course and we need a next generation launch capability. Why throw good money after bad by continuing the current shuttle program? Let's use it to achieve a launch capability that will enable us to fly in one year, what the shuttle has achieved in last 10 or 15.